The Way We Were
by glaciate
Summary: Jean and Marco through the seasons, in the point of view of Jean. Inspired by the song 'The Way We Were' by Carrie Hope Fletcher.


A soft bump behind me was all I needed to hear to know that Marco had fallen from one of the snow covered trees that we were using to practice using our maneuver gear use. However, the branches that we landed on whenever we needed to were coated in a thick layer of ice, which meant that it wasn't unlikely that we would slip over a few times. The smell of rotting leaves loitered in the air, as if it was adamant of leaving since autumn had ended. My head turned to where I had last seen Marco, scanning the area to see where he was - he'd probably be laughing, sat on a particularly large branch of a tree, checking if his wires were damaged. Or perhaps, sat in the snow that covered the ground, cheeks slightly red, chatting away about how each snowflake looked different due to their fragmented shape. But I was wrong. As I scoured the treetops and saw nothing, I moved my gaze further down the trees - and there was still no sign of the freckled boy. My heart skipped a beat when I finally spotted him, clutching his leg, with his head down. And in that moment, worry hit me.

Swiftly, I maneuvered through the trees, avoiding ice sheets as much as possible, to get to Marco. After what seemed like an eternity, I landed ungracefully beside Marco, my eyes scanning over his body, judging the damage that was done in his fall - his leg looked pretty bad, but not broken, twisted perhaps? His face was creased in pain, and his gloved hands clutched at his injured leg. He looked up, and I could see the fear reflected in his eyes before he looked down again. Edging closer, I slowly began to reach out, to assess the damage using my own hands, only to be greeted by a jerk of the injured leg, and a cry of pain from Marco.

"Careful, you'll hurt it more, Marco." I mutter, before saying louder, "How did this even happen, anyway? The trees aren't that high." At this, I received a glare from the freckled boy, but his gaze softened again quickly, and with a sigh, he murmured something about slipping on an ice sheet and losing his balance. At this I gave a laugh, but I stopped quickly after seeing the aggravation in my best friend's face.  
"Can you stand?" I ask, looking at him, concerned.  
"I haven't tried." Marco responded. I held out my hand for him to support himself on, and as he tried to stand, his leg shook and trembled as if the ground was about to collapse beneath him. One yelp of pain later, and we were back where we started.  
"That's a 'no' then."

Figuring that I could probably carry Marco out of the forest, I secured my hands beneath Marco's arms, and with most of my strength, pulled him up, telling him to stand on one leg while I sorted my gas tank out. And as I checked it, I realised - it was empty.

I swore under my breath, before grabbing Marco's from the back of his maneuver gear, and fortunately, the small silver canister still had a good amount of gas in it. I guessed that I had used all of mine getting to Marco, so, discarding my own canister, I replaced it with Marco's. My arm grabbed onto Marco, pulling him closer to me, before moving so that it had a secure grip around his waist.  
"Ready?"  
"Not really, no... I don't really trust you to carry my weight, Jean. I'm a lot heavier than the stuff you're used to carrying."  
"Marco-" he cut me off, quickly.  
"Nope, not letting you haul me out of here."  
"Well then what do you expect me to do?" I say, exasperated.  
"Go get help?"  
"What, and just leave you here? I don't think so!" At that, Marco sighed, before holding onto my shoulders with tight grip.

I took that as me being able to take off, and I did so, and I moved quickly, not realising how much gas Marco had left in his canister. Luckily, when it ran out, we were on the verge of being near the dormitories of the Trainee Corps, and it wouldn't take a lot to haul Marco over there. Or so I thought. The ground was ice. Just ice, with a few crystals of snow dotted around here and there. Throwing Marco's arm around my shoulder, I allowed him to put his weight onto me, and together! we awkwardly moved towards the dormitories, where, fingers crossed, there would be someone that could help.

It took a good ten minutes, complete with slipping over and cursing to get to the dormitories. Flinging the door open as if it was weightless, I dragged Marco into the wooden room, and sat him down on the closest bed to the door. I didn't notice Reiner, Bertholdt and Armin staring at us, and continued walking to the other side of the room, panting, and ignoring the three people looking at Marco and I, with worried looks on their faces.

"What happened?" Armin asked quietly, moving over to where Marco sat, taking in his appearance. Snow covered and wet, Marco shot a small, pained smile at Armin, before explaining what had happened. It was only then that I looked around the room, and realised that there were less people in here then I expected - honestly, I expected most of the trainees to be back by now, but they weren't. I looked over at Reiner, confused, and he just shrugged back, obviously assuming that I was confused about Marco's injury. Throwing my coat off, and flinging it onto my bed, I walked back over to Marco, who's face was no longer pained, and he was allowing Armin to touch his leg. Armin's verdict was that it was twisted. I sighed with relief, knowing that my assumption was correct, and slumped into a sitting position on the bed that my freckled friend was sat upon. I laughed quietly to myself, before cursing.

"What is it, Jean?" Marco asked, voice laced with concern, dark brown orbs boring into my golden ones.  
"It's just, I missed seeing the fall. I bet it would have been hilarious." I smirked, before receiving a soft punch to the arm from a chuckling Marco.

_**I held you up when winter came...**_


End file.
